Ten views of Barcelona

It might be just another view from the bus, but we savor the moments spent looking up, either a pause while walking, or while riding the open air circuit bus.

One of the joys of distance education is meeting online with people from other countries. An extra joy is getting a reply from a professor in Barcelona. “Oh, your city is so enchanting!”

Well, sharing memories of views of La Rambla with a local is a bit like showing a native of Seattle some flying fish in a market… there’s always something in the photo that the local person has never noticed before.

It is said by some that we “see what we expect to see” (see Dr. Eagleman of Houston and his extended presentations about the brain on Youtube).

So the camera sometimes captures what we didn’t know was there.

Perhaps you have seen the row of motorbikes parked along the wall opposite the Sagrada Familia, but did you notice what the advertisement says?

What performing artists do you remember from La Rambla? Che, the Green lady, the silver man?

Hey, those are scary wings!

What do you remember of the eight corner intersections?

Share your favorite views of Barcelona. Send photos and any descriptions and we’ll post them here if we like the photo, too.

Roadlovers10@gmail.com

Still, don’t you hunger to see more photos? I wonder what text we should put here so you can see something besides white space?

Why not tell you a story about Barcelona and the Open University of Catalunya? Let’s reprint some material from wikipedia, you don’t have to read it, you just need to look at the fabulous photos taken by JKMcCrea.com.

The UOC offers graduate and postgraduate programs in Catalan and Spanish in fields such as Psychology,Computer Science, Sciences of Education, Information and Knowledge Society and Economics. Also, an Information and Knowledge Society Doctoral Program is available that explores research fields such as e-law, e-learning, network society, education, and online communities. It has “support centres and points” in a number of cities in Spain, Andorra and the traditionally Catalan-speaking city of Alghero in Sardinia.

The Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) is the research body of the UOC.

Yes, another performance artist. I didn’t know that the society was so wealthy that it could pay people to stay all day…

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The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, UOC) is to launch an ideas competition open to everyone on Monday 23 April. It is to run for 17 weeks and is designed to catalyse creativity as an antidote to the crisis. The university is looking to support the values of talent and open collaboration in order to drive entrepreneurship and generate opportunities.

Saint George’s day, Monday 23 April, is to mark the start of the UOC&PLUGGED 2012 challenge to reward the best ideas and projects for entrepreneurship. The UOC aims to dedicate nearly 80,000 euros in training for the teams presenting the best proposals. There are also to be workshops and knowledge pills to strengthen those ideas that, though creative, are not shortlisted. All the selected ideas will have the chance to evolve as entrepreneurial projects with help from advisors and university faculty, and support from the network of associated companies and media.

The first phase of the competition involves collecting ideas via the openminds.uoc.edu/plug website in one of the eight categories: social learning, finances, resources, wiki-economy, governance, communication, health and urban planning. The best ideas are then to be whittled down with both the general public and a jury voting in each of the categories. The competition is open to everyone, whether they want to propose an idea or vote on them.

The challenge has been called UOC&PLUGGED to reflect its ability to provide a moment for everyone to disconnect and plug back in again with renewed creativity in order to rethink things and improve social well-being. The initiative has received support from renowned leaders of social innovation including Beth Noveck, former leader of the White House Open Government Initiative; Derrick de Kerckhove, researcher and former director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology; Joan Melé, Assistant Director of Triodos Bank, Spain, and Vicente Guallart, Director of Urban Habitat and Chief Architect, Barcelona City Council.

1. All participants in the UOC&PLUGGED Challenge competition must comply with the following rules for participation:

a) All details provided must be correct, truthful and complete.b) The content of the proposals submitted by participants must be original.c) Any content that is published on the UOC&PLUGGED Challenge website must respect the intellectual property rights derived from it.

d) No illegal, defamatory or offensive content or content that is contrary to the values and dignity of the person may be transmitted or disseminated.

e) Respect the opinions and statements of the other website users.

f) Adopt a respectful attitude and language with the other website users.

g) Use the website in accordance with its aim and under no circumstances for illegal, commercial, promotional and/or advertising aims.

h) Not make personal data obtained through distribution lists or via the website available to third parties, for whatever purpose.

i) Not use the e-mail address or details of website users to send unauthorised commercial communications.

2. The organisers of the UOC&PLUGGED Challenge website reserve the right to exclude any participant from the competition who fails to comply with the rules for participation set out herein, without prejudice to other legal measures.

The Open Minds Movement offers online topical debates which are open to participation and are moderated by experts from the UOC.Wikispeeches are lectures created on the basis of questions or suggestions made by web surfers, based on a previously announced subject. They are short chats recorded in informal places that can be followed in streaming on uoc.tv, the UOC/… youtube channel. They will be posted on this website.

Social learning involves learning through the exchange of knowledge and interaction with other people. These two things are now possible thanks to the rise of the internet and the development of 2.0 platforms and tools.The next wikispeech will look to debate this concept of social learning and how new technologies have changed the way we see training and education. As usual, the event will involve two experts:Dolors Reig (social media lecturer, speaker and blogger) andHumberto Schwab (Socratic innovator), who will give their points of view on this issue.

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If you were not able to attend the wikispeech on Travel As An (Ad)venture In Learning, you now have the chance to see the debate between Iván Marcos (Trendtrotters) and Francesc Balagué(Ruta Baobab) moderated by Joan Miquel Gomis (Director of the UOC’s Tourism programme). If you have any suggestions, comments or doubts on the subject, let us know via our Twitter accounts with the hashtag #UOCwikispeech or right here. Join the MO-vement!

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At a time when the word open is on everyone’s lips, here at Open Minds we would like to present the upcoming wikispeech on The Open-Source World and Social Innovation in the Public Sphere. The debate will look at openly distributed resources can be used to generate more collaborative environments and turn the current paradigm of a lack of resources on its head. To answer these and other questions, the wikispeech will count on the presence ofJosep Miró (Director of Strategy and Innovation at Barcelona City Council) and Enric Senabre (Projects coordination and Community management en Goteo).Once again, we would like to invite you to take part, whether in person or online. On this occasion, the event will take place at the Wikilounge, the UOC’s centre in Barcelona (Rambla de Catalunya 6, ground floor) on Wednesday 8 February at 6 pm. If you will not be in Barcelona, you can follow along via the real-time video streaming from our website, where a recording will also be uploaded afterwards. Above all, we would encourage you to play a part now and during the debate; whether by putting forward questions, bringing up concerns or making suggestions via any of the three Twitter accounts, the #UOCwikispeech hashtag or by leaving a comment right here. The discussion will draw on your contributions, so please do get involved.
Josep Miró is Director of Strategy and Innovation at Barcelona City Council. His main functions include promoting and leading social innovation processes and projects within the Management area and together with other parts of the city council, and establishing lines of action to catalyse a culture of impact assessment.
In the online world, he has a website called Cambio y Corto, where he reflects on innovation in the field of international cooperation and where he talks about success stories that can be used as a source of inspiration.Enric Senabre is a member of the dynamic team at Goteo, a collective funding platform for the development of open and creative initiatives, which is responsible for project communication, coordinator of content and social media. It is also associate professor of Media Studies at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and vice president of theObservatory for CyberSociety.

If you are interested in the subject of the open-source world and social innovation in the public sphere or you want to make a contribution, please do so via Twitter or our newsletter section. Subscribe!

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We present the second Wikispeech of Open Minds and we want to invite you to take an active part in it. This month, we will have the chance to attend the Inaugural Lecture for the academic year 2011-2012 of the UOC: «The EHEA, key to employability and international cooperation». The main speaker will be Dr. Guy Haug, chaired by Dr. Carles Sigalés. The event will be based on five lines: EHEA reforming processes, objectives and target audience, curricular renovation, quality and accreditation, competitiveness and cooperation. Indeed, it will be possible to attend both on site and on-line. The event will take place in the Wikilounge of the UOC, in its headquarters of Rambla de Catalunya, 6, ground floor, on Tuesday 27th of September, at 17:30hs. If you cannot come to Barcelona, you will have the chance to follow it through the streaming video that you will both find in the Inaugural Lecture website of the UOC and in our platform, where it will be stored for future display. But above all, we invite you to take an active part in the Wikispeech from now on and even during the discussion, by making questions, commenting your worries, providing suggestions, via @UOCdirecte with the hashtag #UOCinaugural.Dr. Guy Haug, an expert in the assessment and development of higher education strategies and institutions at a European and international level, is the President of the Advisory Board of the UOCInternational Graduate Instituteand the Advisor to the President of the UPV. One of the founding figures of the EHEA, Haug become the principal designer of the Bologna Process when he was Principal Advisor to the European University Association (EUA) (1998-2001) as initiator and promoter of the EU’s higher education modernisation strategy when he was Principal Advisor to the European Commission (2001-2006) and as a member of the team that designed ERASMUS, TEMPUS, ERASMUS MUNDUS. Haug has a degree in Law (Strasbourg, France), a doctoral degree in Political Science (Tübingen, Germany), an honorary degree (HETAC, Ireland). He was the General Manager of several european higher education institutions and companies. He has fostered the internationalization and mobility in the University system, both in Europe and in the U.S. and Latin America. He has promoted the cooperation with international organizations (EU, OECD, World Bank, Unesco) and with numerous university networksDr. Carles Sigalés Conde has a degree in Philosophy and Educational Sciences in the UB. He has an extensive professional experience in the field of education, as a teacher of elementary school (1978-1983), as a psychopedagogue in the Teams of Advising and Orientation of the public education system of Catalonia (1983-1990) as well as its director. He has been involved with the Services of Pedagogical Orientation and Intervention, as well as a consultant of professional training of the teaching staff of the Education Department of the Generalitat of Catalonia(1991-1997). He is the author of a great deal of material for distance learning based in ICTs, in the field of Pedagogy and Psychopedagogy. He has worked as an assistant professor of the ANECA in the design of evaluation tools for distance learning. He has run the Specialization Postgraduate Course of Therapeutic Pedagogy (UOC and URL), where he also has worked as a professor. Between 2000 and 2003, he managed the Studies of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the UOC, where he also held the position of Vicepresident between 2003 and 2005. Nowadays, he develops his scholar research within the ENS group, which is associated with the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute IN3 (UOC).

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The first Wikispeech has finally arrived! And we want to invite you to take an active part in it. This time, we will have the chance to enjoy a discussion between Javier Creus (Ciutadania 4.0) and David Cortés (SIS), who are two experts in creation of process of Social Innovation that will deal with this subject from very similar perspectives but they will distinguish themselves in at least one freature: whilst Ciutadania 4.0 is focused on entrepreneurship which are attached to the TICs, SIS surpasses the field of the latest technologies.It will be possible to attend both on site and on-line. The meeting will take place in the Wiki Lounge of the UOC, in its headquarters of Rambla de Catalunya, 6, ground floor, on Wednesday 27th of July, at 18:00hs. If you cannot come to Barcelona, you will have the chance to follow it through the streaming video that you will find in our website, where it will be stored for future display. But above all, we invite you to take an active part in the wikispeech from now on and even during the discussion, by making questions, commenting your worries, providing suggestions. You will be able to do it through any of our three twitter accounts, with the hashtag #UOCwikispeech, or leaving a comment right here. The discussion will feed on your suggestions, thus you should take an active part.Javier Creus is the founder of Ideas for Change, where he works as a strategy and innovation consultant on marketing and communications for companies and institutions. Co-author of the book No somos hormigas(We’re not ants), he has co-directed the process “Ciutadania 4.0” for Telefónica in Catalunya. He has obtained an MBA inESADE, where he has recently worked as a professor. Later, he has split his time working in different entrepreneurships on the Internet and working as an advertising strategist. As a social innovator, he gave a boost the the WAM 2000 project, the 3000ya.com platform for the achievement of the flat fee and the multidisciplinary space@kubik among others.

David Cortés is a founder of Auditevaluation, which is a consultancy firm of public policies assesment and a developer of welleingproject.es in order to mesure social welfare beyond the GDP standards. Co-founder of Factoría CIudadana, a company that connects people to innovate socially and to find innovative answers to current challenges. He develops Social Innovation Ecosystem (SIS), a project that encourages the innovation among the citizenry and connects them with companies and institutions in order to create valuable proposals.